Why Is It Funny That Dr Strangelove Closes With the Song Well Meet Again?

April 24, 2022 Post a Comment

Stanley Kubrick'south seminal 1964 comedy Dr. Strangelove lampooned the Soviet Union and the nuclear arms race at the height of the Common cold War. Praised equally arguably the greatest political satire e'er made, Dr. Strangelove revolves around an unhinged U.South. general singlehandedly launching a nuclear set on on the Soviet Spousal relationship, effectively kickstarting World War Three.

Although the particular war that Dr. Strangelove satirized has since ended, Kubrick'due south deconstruction of the absurdity of state of war remains a timeless precious stone and the movie is all the same more than worthy of a watch today.

8 Peter Sellers' Trio Of Hysterical Lead Performances

Comics like Eddie Potato and Mike Myers who play multiple roles in their movies were inspired by the legendary Peter Sellers, who played three pb roles in Dr. Strangelove.

Each of Sellers' characters is every bit funny as the terminal. He plays Grouping Captain Lionel Mandrake, a meek British RAF exchange officeholder who tries and falls to prevent a nuclear fallout; President Merkin Muffley, the hysterically ineffective President of the Usa; and, of class, Dr. Strangelove, the ex-Nazi nuclear war expert obsessed with making doomsday happen.

seven Kubrick's Timeless Satire Of War

Although Dr. Strangelove specifically satirized the and then-ongoing Cold State of war, its ridicule of the broader concept of war has proven to exist timeless. Its political satire is just equally incisive today as it was in the '60s, attacking a few universal truths about government and armed services that nonetheless resonate today.

There are sure scenes in Dr. Strangelove that play like alive-activeness political cartoons, like when Mandrake has to buy a Coke to get change for the payphone to become the U.Due south. government to call off a nuclear strike.

6 Ken Adam'southward Iconic Set Blueprint

Ken Adam is one of the most acclaimed production designers of all time. He's known equally the designer of a agglomeration of iconic Bond villains' lairs. He likewise came up with a film set version of Fort Knox for Goldfinger that was astoundingly authentic considering he couldn't visit the real identify for reference.

Afterwards his work on the Bail franchise put him in high demand, Kubrick tapped Adam to design the War Room for Dr. Strangelove. The War Room is now remembered every bit one of the about iconic sets in film history. Its expressionist look recalls the bizarre, foreboding set pattern of Metropolis and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

5 George C. Scott'due south Deadpan Supporting Plough

George C. Scott gives a brilliant supporting performance in Dr. Strangelove as Full general Buck Turgidson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He acts as a sort of right-hand man to the President, desperately trying to advise him of the all-time course of activeness every bit the situation continually deteriorates.

As a straightforward dramatic histrion with little feel in comedy, Scott chose to play every scene completely straight, which fabricated him a perfect foil for the zany stylings of Peter Sellers. Scott settles into this deadpan role beautifully. He even plays off an accidental pratfall in the War Room.

4 Quotable Dialogue

All the best comedies take incessantly quotable dialogue, and Dr. Strangelove has quotable lines in spades, from "The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you lot keep information technology a cloak-and-dagger," to "Mein Führer, I can walk!" to General Ripper'south monologue well-nigh "the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

"Gentlemen, y'all tin can't fight in here! This is the State of war Room!" is one of the nearly iconic i-liners in the history of comedy movies. Dr. Strangelove is as quotable every bit Anchorman or The Large Lebowski. Renowned satirist Terry Southern has a writing credit on the motion picture, and he undoubtedly contributed some sharp lines to the script.

3 Gilbert Taylor's Black-And-White Cinematography

Information technology was an interesting pick on Kubrick's part to shoot Dr. Strangelove in blackness-and-white. Gilbert Taylor's grainy blackness-and-white cinematography suggests a documentary style, which contrasts hilariously with the ludicrous events on-screen.

The black-and-white palette also immune Kubrick to play around with shadows and constitute a noir aesthetic, like General Ripper filling the screen with puffs of cigar smoke.

2 The Applesauce Of Major Kong Riding An H-Bomb

Slim Pickens gives a hilarious turn in Dr. Strangelove equally Major Kong. The pic's climax is based around Kong as the plane arrives above its target, but the faulty bomb bay doors foreclose the troops from dropping the H-bomb.

After repairing the electrical wires while straddling the flop, Kong rides the bomb down to its target, crying out "Yee-haw!" and waving his cowboy hat around. The absurdity of this epitome volition never neglect to get a laugh.

ane The Ironic "We'll Run across Again" Finale

The final scene of Dr. Strangelove gives the motion picture a perfect punchline as Vera Lynn'south "We'll Meet Again" plays over a montage of all life on Earth being wiped out in a nuclear holocaust. It's arguable that no filmmaker besides Kubrick could play a manmade apocalypse for hysterical laughs.

There's a bittersweet irony in the juxtaposition of nukes bravado upward humanity against the song that got the Allies through World War Ii. It suggests that the WWII-era optimism of Lynn'due south heartfelt classic is meaningless in the historic period of mutually assured destruction.

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Ben Sherlock (3486 Manufactures Published)

Ben Sherlock is a author, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Bluster and features and reviews for Game Rant. He's currently in pre-production on his kickoff feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can take hold of him performing standup at odd pubs around the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland that will give him phase fourth dimension. Previously, he wrote for Sense of taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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